The young pigs streaked past us out into the open, but the mother boar was having none of it. This was her cave and she was going to defend it as such. She came at me swinging her head left and right trying to gore me with her sharpened tusks, as her enraged squeals echoed deafeningly throughout the cave. Trent dove in and swiped her up along one flank with his hunting knife. Far from injuring her it only seemed to enrage her further. She turned on Trent with murder glaring balefully in her beady eyes and I saw my opportunity and took it.
I ducked in toward her and grabbed both back hind legs and hoisted her up so that it looked like I had a wheelbarrow. She was now helpless to defend against our advances and Trent quickly moved in with the killing swipe of his knife.
The hunger brought on by our rationing of our food would be ended tonight. This impromptu hunt, while it had been a dangerous experience, had been an extremely fortunate one for us.
With Trent's help I pulled the boar outside and began to butcher it. So much of surviving in the wilderness was just the constant daily struggle to feed oneself. In modern societies it had been forgotten largely, as to what a struggle it could be, simply to eke out enough food to keep on going. Even the homeless in cities had soup kitchens and charities that they could go to. The vast stretches of Siberian wilderness knew nothing of soup kitchens and much less of any form of charity.
The world at large seemed to be unraveling so fast from its carefully constructed order these days. What would happen to the tens of millions of people unused to the rigors of simply surviving day-to-day on what food one could find, when their easy sources of food were taken away from them? It would be a catastrophe that few would emerge from unscathed and yet it seemed, because of the actions of a few the world was fast approaching such an outcome.
Later with a full belly I forced myself to get up, in order to investigate what other hidden dangers the cave may hold, before retiring for the night. Deshavi had eaten well despite herself and was already fast asleep. Trent looked sleepy, but resolutely he sat up awake with a rifle cradled in his arms, as he was on watch duty.
I pulled a burning torch out of the fire and headed off deeper into the cave. My sleepiness soon faded away as I took in the discovery of days gone by. There were cave drawings everywhere!